1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a remote hardware inspection system and method, and more particularly, to a remote hardware inspection system and method for a client server.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Nowadays, many industries apply a PC/server system to manage and operate office works. The PC/server system is used to integrate resources of software and hardware in a network for giving more effective and safer service, for example, accessing/copying files, network support, and sharing various resources with other servers. Generally, the server is kept running all the time for giving service automatically and continuously.
Traditionally, when PC/server systems break down, they are always inspected by the program which is built in the server of the system. In addition to signal inspection, they are usually inspected by complex inputting/outputting data or reading data of a memory or a hardware register, and the data is cross-over analyzed and compared by the built-in programs to get an inspection result. However, some serious events can not be inspected by the program. For example, when the operation system (OS) of the server crashes (e.g. so-called “blue screen of death”) or the server breaks down in the booting process, the server needs to be inspected by a special external hardware inspection apparatus.
As shown in FIG. 1, an external hardware inspection apparatus 12 needs to be connected with a server 10 and a monitor station 14, and then the hardware inspection apparatus 12 transmits the inspection result from the server 10 to the monitor station 14, so that developers and engineers can analyze the inspection result to understand current hardware status of the server.
However, this kind of external hardware inspection apparatuses, for example, Intel XDP or AMD HDT, are very expensive. In order to reduce the development cost, the interface of the external hardware inspection apparatuses for connection with the motherboard is developed and determined just before the mass production stage of the motherboard. Thus, the interfaces always have some problems in compatibility, which troubles many developers and engineers.
Accordingly, the present invention is to provide a remote hardware inspection system and method for solving the aforementioned problems.